darkvapor

www.epinions.com

It's been a while since we've had a massive push to get people to donate to the HH. With all the work he's done lately to make this place kick ass, I think he deserves to get some money from all you free-loaders. For all of you who don't regularly, or ever, make a donation, I think now is a good time to give something back, raise your bottle (or can for all you cheap-asses), donate some money, and post whore some more. https://www.dropzone.com/forms/donations.shtml

I'd like to recommend the "Raptor" as another good hook knife. It's much like a "Jack the Ripper", but is completely aluminum. Very well constructed and very solid. Sells for about 45$ USD. It might be a bit too "hardcore" for most people though. But I use it as my main HK on my CReW jumps. I also keep a smaller aluminum knife on the front of my right leg strap.

I just bought the Suunto Observer (Stainless). Its a pretty neat watch. I use it when I do my CRW jumps. I would not recommend it for freefall, except for a last resort backup. It updates fairly quickly, with a new altitude about once every second. It seems very accurate in the plane and under canopy. It's visibility is not great. Its fine if you have a second or two to look over and read it, but its not going to do if you find yourself low and need to make a decision in a split second. Its also pretty expensive. My model was 350$, which is twice as much as a skydiving altimeter.. ;) But, I do love it for my CRW jumps. No big chest mount to get in my way, and its low profile enough so that I don't have to worry about it as a snag point.

I don't think that they will accept that. If a package was specified by the sender as signature required, they will not accept notes or anything less than a physical signature from a living person. It's kinda annoying, but it saves them from liability. See if you can put a hold on the package, and get to the delivery center that same night. I've done that before, but it depends if they can locate and stop the package and what time the center closes...

See warning label attached. I just thought that was the strangest thing to put on a label.. Post the funniest/strangest/stupidest warning labels you've read.

My dog knows: Sit (and sign language version) Stay (+ sign) Down (+ sign) Playdead Roll-over (+ sign) Speak (+ sign) Come "Who's there?" (go to the windor/door and look + bark) "Let's go pee" (self explanatory) "Go home" "Place" (find a bed, or rug to lie down on) "Find it" (go around room and find something)\ "Which hand is it in?" (smells each closed hand to find which hand contains the treat) "Shake" + "Gimme 5'" "Gimme some paw" or anything of that sort.. I swear.. she reads minds and always knows what I want.. "Cross" (to cross the street) "slow" (to slow down while walking) She knows most of her toy's names. She understands speech very well. She knows exactly what you mean if you tell her to "get down" (off the couch) or something... You can almost speak naturally to her as you would a 10 year old and she will understand. The list goes on.. "you want it?" (asking her if she wants something I have or will get her soon) she knows most of the words for food and treats.. like "dinner".. "chips" "cookie" "pizza"... they all mean a damn good meal for her... "[lets go for a] walk" ... time for a walk.. "outside"... obvious.. she knows so many commands and tricks.. I can write about them for days.. ;) she is absolutely the smartest dog I have ever known. And no formal training what so ever.. ;) See attached..

How can you say that? If your head hit the ground hard enough to knock (or pull) the strap loose, then it would have certainly scraped your head up. Consider yourself lucky and don't go looking for compensation or apologies from manufacturer's from your landing mistakes. That statement makes it sound like you aren't even sure what cut you up. You get injured on landing, but then look for blood on your gear and advice from 3rd party doctors to explain what happened?

The following is for the current world record attempt. It also applies to competition and regular recreational CReW as well. Obviously, good judgement should apply. If you are used to flying 1:1, then jumping to 1.35 immediately would not be smart.

I really wanted to do some crew with ya'll. I jumped with Jeff and Lee the weekend before, and I totally planned on coming out this past weekend too. But some asshat rear-ends me on Friday night and I have to spend most of Saturday getting my car fixed. I came out Sunday.. but rain rain rain and clouds. Go figure... Anyways... My brand spankin' new Lightning came in today. It will be flying this coming weekend, even if it has to be solo crew..

A ram air triangular chute. Anyone jump anything like this?

Perhaps, but none of my popups are generated when I'm not actively surfing. If popups started appearing randomly throughout the day, then I would suspect something like that gator software or another spyware, but all of my popups come from news sites and similar popups. I keep my firewall security settings very high, and very few programs have internet access. In fact, I block many microsoft applications and processes from internet access as well. But I didn't start this thread to discuss popups and their causes, just to see people's success stories and numbers from the google-bar, which I think is great. I've used the googlebar since it originally came out, and now its starting to take on some cooler features than just being an interface to the google search engine.

Heheh, no .. I guess I just surf too much. I don't have any of that spyware installed. I have a firewall on all the time. Along with the usual VirusScan. Ad-aware finds nothing, and I know I have nothing.. But things like weather.com, and a lot of news sites will always give you one popup from an advertiser. Visit those sites 10 times a day and those popups get annoying too..

How many popups has your Google-Bar™ blocked? 940 for me. http://toolbar.google.com/

Speaking of designing sexually appealing women's clothing: A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown The engineers here will appreciate this. Quoted from above source:

Sorry to make this into a poll.. But they get good responses and a higher sample number... Anyways.. How do you feel about CReW? It seems that so many people are scared to even try. I have about 20 CReW jumps so far, but I love it. I have my own Lightning on the way, and I will take every given opportunity to go up and do some CReW. It also seems like the few people that try it turn out to love it just as much. I know it's not the largest discipline, so some dropzones probably don't have a single crw dog in sight. Sure, there is an added (or perceived) risk. But I'd venture to say that the CRW fatality rate is lower than, or atleast eqaul to, the skydiving fatality rate. It's not every day you hear about a CRW dog hooking his canopy in. In fact, I have learned more in 1 crw jump about flying my canopy than I could in 20 regular freefall jumps. It's rather scary to have a conversion with someone with hundreds of jumps, and they have absolutely no clue about advanced canopy control. It seems most people only understand: left toggle = go left; right toggle = go right; together = FLARE!... Thoughts? If you got hooked on it after a jump or two, chime in and share your experiences. Maybe we can get a few people to try something they otherwise wouldn't. If it scared the hell out of you so that you quit, share that too.

The main things keeping me from buying one are the following: 1) Its a harddrive based system. Therefore it is not shockproof. Running and other strenuous activities are probably not recommended. 2) Max altitude. 10,000 feet as listed on the iPod spec sheet. Would be nice to take it up on the ride to altitude, as well as on hop'n'pops and such. Being above 10,000ft is probably not recommended. 3) Its pretty expensive. I'm not going to pay $400 (newest 15 gig model) when its going to be useless (or less useful) in a few years. So I guess I will just stick with my solid-state Samsung (128meg) mp3 player.. not the best.. but for around 100 bucks it works..

Anyone seen that funny ass Family Guy episode where they go to the laser rock show, and there is an exhibit on binary. Then they have a re-enactment of 'The Miracle Worker' in binary..

Living in any major city in the US, crime is a issue. I live in two large metropolitan areas in the south, Dallas and Atlanta. Just an interesting article I ran across. Dated Aug 16 2003. See... a low life scum approached an off-duty police officer and tried to victimize him. Was the policeman in a bad area? Was it his fault for being there? I'm not out looking for trouble in a Saturday night. But I sure as hell am not going to be a victim. You hear stories like this on a daily basis, both that turn out "good" like this one, and ones where the person being victimized is killed. As has been pointed out, the more law abiding armed citizens we have in this country, the better. Make criminals think twice before trying to attack good people. I hear of way too many car jacking, home invasions, and attacks on the news. Attacking back is the way to go. Look at airline hi-jackings. Not only has the threat of an armed air-marshal increased, but also the fact that if any individual tries to do something stupid, he will get the living shit beat out of him by everyone in his section. We have already seen examples of this. And who knows, but maybe that has prevented another hi-jacking.

Just to educate you, defending yourself is not murder in this country. If *any* asshole tries to do bodily or property damage to you or your loved ones, you have the legal right to defend yourself, your property, or your business, even if that means blowing the low-life scum into next week. Do you see something fundamentally wrong with this basic American right? And you know what? If its between my life and the life of the one trying to kill me, I think that one is quite easy to decide.

I think I'm more worried over the consequence of not using it. I'm a law abiding citizen with no criminal past. I will get a CCW permit for this gun. What do I have to worry about? But I sure as hell would rather have the gun then find myself a victim to one of the many low-lifes that would love to rob me, my car, or my home. And getting out and popping off a few rounds at the range won't be too bad on a rainy weekend like this one.

I'm in the market for a good solid handgun. I've always wanted an H&K USP .45 Stainless. Just wanted some opinions on that model. http://www.hecklerkoch-usa.com/pages/civilian/uspframeset.html I know H&K's are pretty expensive, but money isn't a huge deal. I want this gun for personal defense, as well as weekend shooting. So I want reliability and accuracy. I'm also leaning towards the larger calibres. A 9mm ain't gonna cut it. You can post about your gun(s) and opinions.

Judge for yourself. Wings W-13 with a Cobalt 170 + PD 160R.

How do you like a guy's chest hair? A few conversations over a few drinks and watching a recent Seinfeld episode has got me curious what most ladies like... I know there are some concurrent threads talking about a guy's other sections of hair... but I don't want to talk about that.. Don't even ask how we got on this topic in the first place..

He's gonna be in Scary Movie 3. I love that part in the trailer with Michael Jackson... http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/scary_movie_3/trailer.html BTW. I love both Hot Shots movies too. "Only problem is, I have a nosey land-lady. By the way.. I can go all night like a lumberjack." "What about your land-lady?" "You can do her too"...